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Talk:Shakespearean Echo Chamber/@comment-24984436-20140624203453
As Kylie and I have been working on our presentation together, I believe that I can say that we both fell in love with Shakespeare's metamorphosis. I would like to address a similar point, and I do not mean to copy any opinions, but I just think that female agency is so prominent in Shakespeare's plays. It simply is a subject that needs to be addressed with care. Over his career, he was able to change his playwriting from a female-unfriendly, bloody Titus Andronicus to a quite hopeful Winter's Tale. I too would like to go back to the Winter's Tale, but to a later moment. In fact, I would like to focus on act V.III., where the audience sees Paulina, the teacher and director, and a transformed Leontes. One aspect I love in this act is Leontes' changing tone; it seems like the metamorphosis in act V is two-fold; the more obvious transformation is Hermione becoming a female again, but one could not argue that Leontes is one-dimensional. Whereas he tends to suppress and dislike Paulina in the previous acts, he addresses her as "O grave and good Paulina, the great comfort that I have had of thee!" (1). The king is thankful and understands that he has to be thankful because of the actions of a woman. He is even polite and thoughtful in his acting with her, his "we honour you with trouble" (9) seems to be so distanced from his bad temper in the beginning of the play when he only wanted his wished to be carried out. He asks for Paulina's consent and obeys when Paulina commands the king to speak. This reversal in roles is really meaningful; it is one step closer to equality, since it will equal out by the end of the play, although Paulina just gets so much agency by being the director of the theatrical last scene. However, my favourite moment is probably when Leontes says "what you can make her do/ I am content to look on; what to speak/ I am content to hear; for 'tis easy/ to make her speak as move" (92-94). From what I understand, at first, we see the Pygmalion element again; falling in love with a perfect objectified woman, which would bring us back to Lavinia. However, there is more to this moment; Leontes, the husband who wanted to silence his wife because of her rhetorical superiority, wants his wife to speak again. A male -a king- wishes for a woman -his queen- to speak again, and thus, to gain equality again. I may be reading this the way I want it to be, but I see Shakespeare becoming the Honey-Tongued, Ovidian poet who sees the value of women and rewards this with extra, artful, creative alternatives; Hermione's resurrection. To me, it is a delicate moment where harmony reigns; Leontes feels his regrets and understands his mistake; his woman is just as good as he is and possibly better. He wants her to speak. And adding to this, he also addresses Paulina's agency by asking whether she can do that for him as her role of director. I loved seeing Shakespeare's transformation and growth as a writer, as I was at the same time transforming and growing in my academics as well. Of course, there is no way that I could even think of saying that I have experienced the growth between a Titus Andronicus Shakespeare and a Winter's Tale Shakespeare, but I certainly felt that these six weeks have benefited me in so many ways. As an avid Ovid (this is the best word order I have probably ever written) fan, I am very passionate about these creative alternatives Ovid (and now Shakespeare) has to offer. I do not want women to be superior to men; all the world needs is equality, and I think that Ovid and Shakespeare now try to offer this despite the zeitgeist of female oppression. I see this in the last scene; after many ups and downs of equality and inequality, Leontes acknowledges that he and Hermione are equal at last, with the help of a female third party. This play gives me hope; hope for women, hope for men, hope for all.